


Communication is Key

by patxaran



Series: Leopikaweek2016 on tumblr [6]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, Humor, Learning languages, M/M, bilingual sneezing, his execution needs work, kurapika can speak all the languages, kurta language, leorio can tell you to get bent in half the languages, leorio is a dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patxaran/pseuds/patxaran
Summary: A story about attempting to share your obscure native language with the love of your life, and ultimately retreating, defeated, from the task, because that person is an idiot. A persistent idiot. An idiot who will keep trying even when you flatly refuse to help them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't think of a good fic, so I just took a thinly veiled autobiographical incident and rearranged it to include Leopika.

In the first days of their relationship, Kurapika had been relatively forthcoming with sharing various Kurta words and expressions with Leorio. He'd told Leorio ways to complain about weather, complain about state of being (hunger, thirst, sleepiness), and complain about the annoying traits of other people imposing on one's personal space. He'd also shown him how to make the particular sound effect used to illustrate audibly the already evident fact that someone was either about to be, or was currently being, tickled.

Leorio, despite having been told all these things repeatedly at various points over the course of a three years and a half, had committed absolutely none of it to memory. Meanwhile, Kurapika had developed passable fluency in Leorio's own language. This was on top of already speaking the international lingua franca he and Leorio were both masters of (a language hitherto referred to as the Hunter language), and having varying levels of dominance over a handful of other languages he'd picked up by study or by ear in the various places he'd travelled throughout the world. Kurapika was fond of reminding Leorio that he spoke two native languages, Kurta and the language of the country the Kurta had lived in (hitherto referred to as Luskon, the language of the Lukso Province). Leorio, possessor of one native language, a dialect of that same language, and the Hunter's language, had told Kurapika to shut up and stop gloating.

For a long time, about all Leorio remembered of Kurta was how to tickle someone. He also knew the distinctive way Kurapika sneezed when the sneeze came on too quickly and in such a way that Kurapika couldn't spare his usual fraction of a second to alter how it would come out. Normally, Kurapika made a conscious effort to force his sneeze to resemble the more internationally recognized sound of sneezing. This had been bizarre to Leorio, who hadn't been aware that you could sneeze in two different languages. It wasn't just a sneeze with an accent, either. It was an entirely distinct sound from anything Leorio had ever heard in his entire life.

The odd sound Kurapika made while sneezing natively was related to the other distinct sound Kurapika made when he was cold and not minding his audience, or when he didn't think anyone was truly listening to him and therefore had no foreign culture's onomatopoeic/exclamative expectations to play up to. Instead of a voice bilabial stop followed by some type of rhotic consonant (spelled "brrr") that was so ubiquitous in Leorio's region of the world, the sound Kurapika made was fairly nuanced and complex. If pressed to describe the sound, Leorio would say it was like Kurapika were saying "tch-tchiya", but like, in a much more difficult way than Leorio's own shit approximation of the sound could adequately capture.

Leorio, like most people he'd ever heard sneeze in his entire life, made a more or less cartoony sort of "achoo" sound. Kurapika's sneeze actually sounded _more difficult_ , because how the hell was the sudden intake of breath going to escape in the constrained mouth-space the sneeze required? It was like Kurapika was abruptly cutting himself off, restraining the sneeze and harnessing its momentum to form what nearly seemed to be actual words. The whole production reminded Leorio of the embarrassing situation created when you needed to sneeze in the middle of an important sentence and figured if you simply kept articulating, then you might be able to suppress the coming sneeze into something quick and reasonable and easily passed over. But, you were wrong, and you ended up dragging out the penultimate syllable of your last word with such stuttering fanfare that everyone had already lost the train of the sentence, overcome as they were by the engrossing "will they or won't they?" suspense of witnessing you wrest with your expulsatory reflexes.

Shame as it was, sneezing and shivering and tickling were all Leorio had of the Kurta language. Far too late, Leorio began to realize that he'd unwittingly missed a narrow window of language sharing openness and opportunity with Kurapika in the blossoming days of their relationship. Now, almost four years in, Kurapika had grown increasing reticent in saying anything in the Kurta language to Leorio. Ironically, as Kurapika's obliging eagerness to volunteer words waned, Leorio's interest in those words had piqued. Leorio was more patient than before, more selfless and with a greater sense of investment in his few long-held relationships. At this stage, Leorio cared a great deal more about having an active and participatory understanding of Kurapika's culture. Leorio had matured and was aware that there was literally a whole side of Kurapika's identity that no-one would ever be able to relate to or understand unless they expended the necessary effort and tried.

Leorio was now ready to try.

Kurapika, however, only told Leorio how to talk about the must rudimentary weather phenomena, and even then only if Leorio was persistent. As it turned out, Kurapika didn't exist in stasis. He'd grown older as well, and his youthful openness, already tightly restricted when he'd met Leorio when they were teenagers, had diminished in regards to discussing matters of his extinct clan. Kurapika wasn't entirely sure why this was. About most other things, Kurapika was open with Leorio to what Kurapika personally considered to be an alarming extent. There were parts of Kurapika no-one but Leorio had ever seen. The rare times Kurapika reached a level of contentment in life, approaching what was perhaps real happiness, were all more often than not in Leorio's presence. Really, if there was anyone more baffled by Kurapika's avoidance of the Kurta topic, it was Kurapika himself.

Therefore, any Kurta word Kurapika gave Leorio, from the most fleeting to the most convoluted, Leorio strived to retain in his mind until some later point where he could write down an approximation of what it had sounded like. Once Leorio had the words committed to paper, he could look back and refresh them in his mind to set them there permanently. One day, Kurapika was in an uncommonly generous mood and lavished Leorio with a refresher course on the appropriate grammatical structure to comment on one's temporary physical state of hunger or thirst or exhaustion. Leorio had already had a vague notion of how to say such things, but had jotted them down clandestinely in the margins of the case files he was reviewing anyway. Another day, Kurapika had spontaneously taught him an entirely separate, almanac-styled calendar that started the year in September rather than January. From September, the division of the year was based on the most important agricultural tasks that needed to be completed, as well as the important festivals to be celebrated. Leorio, naturally, had immediately forgot the Kurta names for absolutely everything Kurapika told him, but he'd retained the overall concept well enough as it'd been described in translation.

In the day-to-day life, the fact that Leorio soon only knew how to say "it's so hot outside" or "I'm cold" in Kurta was inconsequential. He was infrequently presented with the necessary, fortuitous arrangement of circumstances that allowed him to use these expressions logically, except for a few times while waiting with Kurapika outside for a bus. Instead, Leorio focused on the second best thing to learning any usable Kurta, which was learning Kurapika's other native language, Lukson. This other language was actually published in books and was the go-to means of communication for the numerous, disparate groups of people in the corner of the world bordering Kurapika's native Lukso Province. Leorio, was not especially great at it (his pronunciation alone was wildly inconsistent) but Kurapika had been much more forthcoming with assistance in this language. After about three months of Leorio hardly getting anywhere with the study, however, Kurapika'd started getting exasperated with him over Lukson, too. He'd started telling Leorio to give up, that he'd never learn the language to any usable extent beyond parroting Kurapika's muttered, multilingual imprecations back at him mockingly when Kurapika was clearly already pissed off. Leorio half took this advice and would put his studies on the back burner the moment anything of infinitesimally greater importance to them came up.

Despite his reluctance to share, Kurapika didn't denounce the use of Kurta between him and Leorio. Sometimes he offered a small smile in response to Leorio's superficial observations of the weather outside, amused at Leorio's limited ability in the language rendering him utterly incapable of expressing any opinion other than how much or how little he felt two exact extremes in temperature. Leorio also knew (for whatever damn reason) all the most important words of the Kurta equivalent to "what the hell are you doing?", though Leorio didn't always say the words in order, or with all the proper syllables intact. This always got a small chuckle out of Kurapika, who honestly couldn't remember when he'd even taught Leorio the expression or why.

And because Kurapika never stopped him, and because Kurapika often rewarded Leorio with smiles, Leorio thought nothing of announcing in Kurta that it was really hot, and he was really thirsty, while he and Kurapika were walking through a large wooded park to pass some time after a sizable lunch.

"[What heat! I'm thirsty]," said Leorio in Kurta. He punctuated the exclamation with a tired groan as he slowed his pace. Kurapika had just finished telling him (not in Kurta) that they hadn't brought along any water in Kurapika's bag.

Leorio expected Kurapika to laugh and shake his head at Leorio's babbling, which was the normal way these exchanges went. For some odd reason, this didn't appear to be happening. Leorio tried another approach, assuming Kurapika had simply spaced out or stopped listening.

"How do you say 'very'?"

"Medda," said Kurapika without looking over.

"Mehda."

"Med-DA."

"[I'm very thirsty. I'm tired. It's very hot.]"

Again, some sort of benevolent smile, a flash of acknowledgement to reward Leorio's effort, was missing from the exchange. When Kurapika did look back, for by now Leorio had fallen a ways behind him, there was a strange bewilderment in his face. A touch of worried confusion shone his eyes. Leorio noticed it instantly and hurried to resolve it.

"What? What's wrong?"

Kurapika shook his head. Half a faint smile slowly spread over his lips, but Kurapika probably had no idea it was even there. The total effect was an uncoordinated look of temporary astonishment mingled with surprise. Kurapika hadn't decided how exactly he felt, he just knew something very peculiar had happened. His face then tried to respond three ways at once, because his mind was in too much of a jumble to command it.

"It's weird to hear you speaking Kurta," Kurapika confessed after a growing cascade of persistent 'what?'s repeated in a loop from Leorio, pressing him to say something.

Leorio felt a tremendous sense of guilt wash over him, as though he'd inadvertently overstepped his bounds and needed to immediately make amends for the transgression. He went with instinct and tried to laugh the moment away with a self-depreciating comment.

"Well, no-one from my country ever learns Kurta, so my accent is probably really weird. You've don't often get to hear someone from my country mess your language up."

"You pronounce Kurta better than Lukson."

The tone of Kurapika's voice implied that this was something Kurapika found uncanny, but had already accepted after years of listening to Leorio mindlessly parrot back Kurta words with near perfection and zero comprehension.

"Oh."

"You pronounce it well. It's just weird to hear you speaking it. It's weird to imagine you…. I don't know." Kurapika, who'd so far kept his head pointed in Leorio's general direction, finally turned away completely. "It's hard to explain…."

"I'll never speak it again."

"I'm not upset or anything."

"You seem kind of upset."

"It's just really weird. There's nothing wrong."

Leorio saw that he needed to back off for now, and transitioned to making pointless comments in butchered Lukson for the rest of the walk instead of attempting anything further in Kurta.

Evidently, Leorio's ability to string together a coherent phrase with little preamble had surprised Kurapika. For a few seconds, before Kurapika remembered Leorio was literally reciting all he knew, there was the impression that Leorio was actually engaging him in casual conversation… _in_ _Kurta_. This had unsettled Kurapika, because interacting with Leorio never activated the part of his brain dedicated to operations in Kurta. Whenever Leorio asked him for specific words, accessing that information merely felt as though Kurapika were pulling a translation from some file or memory bank. No active use of the language was ever initiated. He was too fluent in their shared language to fall back into Kurta at the translation of a word or phrase. He could've translated an entire paragraph if Leorio asked, and not for a second would it feel like anything other than repeating something he knew naturally, like listing the colors of the rainbow or the days of the week in order.

It'd been too many years since Kurapika's knowledge of Kurta had required actual, active conversational use. This was what had unnerved him, this sudden sensation that he was communicating with someone in a language he hadn't casually spoken to another person in more than a decade. The easiness with which is mind had transitioned alarmed him. It was something Kurapika hadn't known he was capable of. It'd been like slipping into another self from another time, reminding him painfully of everything in his past that he'd lost.

"Are you sure you're okay today?" asked Leorio later that very same evening, because Leorio was totally incapable of letting anything go. He'd been avoiding the subject most of the day, but patience was not one of his greatest virtues. Kurapika, on the other hand, had nearly forget all about the incident and frowned at the unbidden reminder.

"You just surprised me, Leorio. Don't worry about it. You can still say things in Kurta if you want. I don't hate it."

"I'll actually learn it properly instead."

"Who's going to teach you?"

"You, I guess. Or I'll get good enough a Lukson to study it. Almost all the stuff about Kurta is written in Lukson."

"It's pointless. You can only speak Kurta to me. If you want to learn something useful, study what they speak in Kakin. That would actually be useful."

"Everyone I'd need to talk to in Kakin can speak the Hunter language. Hell, nearly everyone in my country can speak the Hunter language, too. Sometimes I even feel like I've gotten better at this language than my own dialect of my own language. Last time I went home it took me a week to wake up and speak normally, because I never use my dialect when I'm away. It doesn't get worse, like, I don't forget it totally, but it loses _complexity_. I can't put things exactly how I want in the same moment that I want to say them."

"It's impossible to study Kurta, though. You'll never learn it well enough. Not because you're not capable, but because you'd have to depend on me. I don't have time to create a whole course for you. I don't even know how to teach it. Speaking a language, any language, doesn't automatically qualify you to teach."

"Well, if you're anything like me, you've noticed your ability fading."

"I take measures for that. I read. There are books translated into Kurta, you know. You've seen them."

"Then, I'll study those books."

"When? When are you going to have time?"

"Why do you have an argument for everything?"

"This just isn't something I need you to do for me."

"I'd like to know some words anyway. I'm going to learn what I can, because it'll make me happy. It's important, even if I never really use it, because it's something about you. You can't stop me."

"I'll never speak it back to you."

"I don't need you to. I just want to know it for myself."

"Fine. Waste your time. You'll give up anyway. You didn't even get very far in Lukson."

"Oh, I think this is different. I'm meduh motivated."

"Med-DA. And it's more natural at the end of the sentence. I mean, you can say it both ways, but the end is more common."

"I'm motivated medda."

"Shut up. You sound stupid mixing the languages up like that."

"I might need a few more words medda."

Kurapika rolled his eyes and lowered the book he'd been reading. "You can't just put that at the end of every sentence you want to intensify. That's not how—you know what? Forget it."

Kurapika hopped up from his chair at the desk and went to the other room where the languages section of the veritable library lining the walls of the apartment was contained. He returned after a minute, tossing two books to Leorio, who caught them, amazed.

"One's a grammar, the other's the closest thing I have to a medical book you might find interesting. Good luck, though. I don't own a translation of either."

"I appreciate it medda," said Leorio, flipping through the first book while Kurapika sat back down at the desk. Kurapika rolled his eyes and grumbled.

"In just how many languages am I going to have to tell you to shut up?"

"Tell me in Kurta."

"Like hell. It'll become the only thing you ever say to me if I do."


End file.
